this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
28 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37603 readers
631 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I agree with you on the point, but this is a terrible example, as the government does in fact charge cinemas for infrastructure use through property taxes.
I wouldn't go that far, recent regulation is very hit or miss with this and Chat Control. That said, it's not like the US has a better track record either.
What's the problem with forcing standard formats on phone chargers?
The USB C thing is daft because we already had a de facto standard. All smartphones connected to a USB-A charger. Requiring USB-C forevermore stifles innovation for whatever in time would supersede USB-C.
There’s also the small matter or ewaste. Mandating that the phone end must be USB-C but saying nothing of the charger end has ended up with most OEMs interpreting it as USB-C both ends. So people are either getting cables that don’t work with their chargers which get wasted or they go buy new chargers causing their old ones to be waste.
As an aside lightening is also a more physically robust design (setting aside transfer speeds etc.. which mean nothing to most users), so kinda sucks that all phones will be required to have the tongue-in-port design which is a weak point.
I also wonder when Apple will stick two fingers up at this and go portless and just have wireless, which Androids would then copy, then we’re in a far worse place heh.
Great intentions, execution that delivers little to benefit or, at worst, detriment.
Fair point on the cinema example - didn’t think that one through!
The law that requires phones to use USB-C, does not say it will last forever. In fact, the update to USB-C proves that they look for new technologies and update the law once such a thing is needed. Maybe now people have to buy new chargers, but in the long term, keeping chargers the same will reduce e-waste as people can use USB-C to charge many devices. You can charge your MacBook and smartphone with the same charger because of USB-C and the USB power delivery specification.
But the Fair Share part is a bit weird, consumers already pay for the network. But often they don't pay for the amount of data that they use. It would make more sense to just charge users again based on their network usage, but I understand that that would be highly unpopular. In the end, someone has to pay for all the traffic though.
That’s my point.. we already could charge many devices from the chargers we had
Yeah and most people have USB-C chargers nowadays. It will just get rid of other connector forms and going forward unify it. It’s awesome.
If you are a heavy Apple user that might be annoying for you. But in the gran scheme of things that’s the minority.